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Sunday, October 27, 2013

“The intuitive
mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have
created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” - Albert
Einstein

When I was in college, I had
two career treks: a solid foundation in liberal arts to build on for law
school, and my secret pleasures--creative writing and world religion.I would gift myself with one creative writing
class and one religion class each semester that I thought of as my guilty
pleasures.What I now know is the
classes that gave me so much joy and I felt pulled towards were the guidance of
my soul.I let my intellect−law school will provide a good living−trump
my deepest desires.

My intuitive mind,
which I believe is our soul that resides in the heart, was quietly guiding me,
while my rational mind firmly controlled my path.Albert Einstein knew we had those two roles
mixed up.French philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said it so beautifully,“We
are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings
having a human experience.” Thus, as we can understand that part of us is physical, we also must acknowledge that another part of us is spiritual. The gift of spirit in our daily living is sometimes ignored
or dominated by our rational mind.Yes,
we need our rational mind to get us to the market, to remind us to feed
ourselves, etc., but the role it should play is that of supporter.The star is our intuitive mind, which is the
gift of our divine knowing.

How
Do We Recognize the Intuitive Mind?

Have you ever made a
decision you regretted and then said to yourself "Something told me to go
the other way?"That
"something" is the quiet voice of our intuition.The intuitive voice is usually soft and
non-intrusive and does not cause fear.We can tap into that quiet voice through meditation and prayer and by
placing our hand over our heart at any time and in any place and call forth our
soul to answer.Calling forth our
intuition is like a muscle.The more we
do it, the clearer and stronger that intuitive voice will be.

The
Limitations of the Rational Mind

Our rational mind is
protective of our survival−the creator of our flight or fight response−and can
cause us to have fear and doubt. Our rational mind also mirrors the voices we
heard growing up, which causes limited thinking (our Monkey Minds).If we were told we were stupid as a child,
the rational mind will remind us of this for on our protection until we tell it
otherwise.Gay Hendricks, research
psychologist and author of The Big Leap,
calls this an Upper Limit Problem. (More about our Upper Limit in the next
blog). We can program our rational mind to be in line with our spiritual selves
as we grow.We can tell our rational
mind that we are no longer the child who was scared, self-doubting, and
alone.Remember, our rational mind is,
after all, our faithful servant. The key is to learn how to use our intuition
by recognizing our soul's quiet guidance and then reprogram our rational brain
to obey the direction of our heart, which is where our soul resides.

30- Day Mirror Affirmation

If you are suffering from the the demands of the rational mind, our survival mind that can indeed keep us up at night with anxiety, try the following affirmation for 30 days:

I surrender to the guidance of
my heart, and trust that all my needs and desires have already been given to
me.I accept this gift right now in this
moment and affirm that it is so.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

"It is our very fear of the future that distorts the
now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the
present.” Marion Woodman

As a coach, I hear the pain in a client's voice as they tell me they don't
know why they can't get this job, get this promotion, hit a certain tier of success,
stop negative behavior, make the relationships in their life work, etc.They tell
me they try to project what they want in the future, but their past keeps them
stuck. I understand the trap of the past, and how it can keep us just far
enough out of reach from our goals to cause frustration. When my 19 year old marriage ended, I
interpreted that loss as a personal failure. I told myself, If I had been better, I would have
had a fuller, more honest marriage. I defined myself as less than because my ideal marriage had not been achieved.We all have ideals, which either keep us
tethered to the past, constantly going over and over why we are not achieving
the results we want, or focused on the future.This cycle can feel impenetrable,
but it absolutely can be resolved.

The first step is to surrender to the moment.When we shift our gaze from our past and
future and accept the present, our perceptions are allowed the freedom
to become fluid.We can consider the
possibility that our current circumstances may hold lessons that will instruct
us.We may miss these important clues
without this important shift in perspective.Asking, "What is the lesson that I need to learn," can yield the promise of
our dreams if we keep our attention on the present. I began to understand the
lessons of my past, and I began to let go of my ideal future when I let the gifts of the present unfold.For the first time in my life, I knew from
somewhere deep inside of me that I was perfect just as I was because the
circumstances that I had once deemed a hardship were really a loving,
instructive gift.Every piece of my
life's path was exactly as intended.My
inner compass, that soft, gentle voice, was enough.

The second step is to go inward. When we go inward, we begin to see the beauty in each step in life's dance. We understand why we didn't get that promotion because something else was forming that was better. Meditation gave me the space to go inward.It also gave me the eyes to see the dew on the
petals of a flower, the myriad colors of a setting sun, and the beauty in each
human being that has come into my life.When I adjusted my gaze from what went wrong (the past) and how I am going to fix it (the future), I could see the beauty in my
ex-husband, my children, and even in the death of a loved one.

I helped to care for my mother-in-law in the last years of
her life.I took her swimming twice a
week, and when she could no longer swim, I took her to some of her favorite
places−the library, the bookstore, and The Dollar Store. When I first began this
journey with her, I was not present as a thousand things I could
be doing instead flooded my mind. My ideal of relationship looked differently, and I almost missed the gift in front of me. It didn't take long, however, to see that gift. My mother-in-law shared her dreams, her
hurts, her regrets, her secrets, her wisdom, and gratitude. I was connected to
this beautiful soul, and she was connected to me. Connecting is the beauty of life and what really makes us whole. While we want the job, the promotion, the right dollar amount in our retirement fund, being loving and being loved is the ultimate gift.

I have come to know that the only way to truly confront the world
is with open eyes and an open heart. When we give up expectations, we can see
the gifts and lessons that in the present moment, demonstrates that we are whole and on
the right path. Thich Nhat Hanh's book The Miracle of Mindfulness states, “Many people are alive but don't touch the
miracle of being alive.”When I surrender
to what is happening in any given moment without a preconceived notion, I am
present for the gifts of life even in the face of tragedy or death. When I give up what I think my life should
look like, then the dreams can be unveiled, and the money, jobs, and relationships can come into view.When we are whole, we are connected. When we are whole, we achieve. When we are whole and we experience the miracle of of being alive.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

In graduate
school I had the space to write, read, and to fall in love.Love came fast and furiously with Junot Diaz'sDrown, his debut offering of
short stories that gave me permission to write the rhythms of my neighborhoods in Los
Angeles that were not all lush, honey-colored beaches and swaying in the breeze
palm trees.I rekindled an affair with
Toni Morrison, J.D. Salinger, and AndreDubus, Jr.It was a time of quiet
reflection and a shifting into something unknown until I met John Edgar Wideman's ducking and jabbing Mama from his collection of short stories, God's Gym.In Wideman's story titled Weight, this Mama rocked my quiet world
of contemplation and continues to do so.The family Wideman's Mama inherited needs prayer, love, and
understanding, but most of all, they need the woman at the helm to be in
fighting-ready condition to deal with the life she has been given. Wideman writes:

"My mother is a weightlifter.... Not barbells
or dumbbells ... The weights she lifts are burdens−her children's, her
neighbors, yours."

Before I found Wideman's fierce and ready to deal mother, I
tended to only don my spiritual armor in times of trouble but mostly came up short because my spiritual
body was weak and out of shape.No
matter how much thoughtful contemplation I give my trials, no matter how many
pleas I made to the Universe, I still felt defeated and unsure.

The practice of
love, forgiveness, faith, and patience is just that− a practice.The day-to-day stretching and pumping of
spiritual iron makes it easier to step into the ring with our wounds, doubts, feelings
of unworthiness, victimhood, and fear.The practice of hitting God's gym daily, hourly, and especially when
times are good and the going is easy, builds the muscles needed to look
uncertainty square in the face.

On my bathroom
mirror is a bright, yellow post-it with the words "Choose Love"
written with a thick, black Sharpie.I
wanted it to stand out because I need to be reminded that love is a
practice.Each in-the-moment decision to
choose love strengthens my love muscles.Prayer and time spent on my meditation pillow is time well spent in my
spiritual gym, but it is not enough.I
then have to build on that practice by offering up a parking space in the Wawa
parking lot when I see a hurried somebody eager to cut me off, and practice patience
when my beautiful eleven year old boy rolls his eyes because I tell him to
brush his teeth.

The
minute-by-minute practice of consciously choosing within the thousands of
choices presented to me each day strengthens my ability to choose
love, faith, forgiveness, and patience in both times of trouble and when the
going is as easy as the palm trees of my childhood swaying softly in the warmth
of a California breeze.

About Me

I am the founder of OneWomanOneVoiceProject.com, a social networking website and positive place on the Internet to connect, grow and thrive.
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